


Homines Nobis

by BreathingSpace



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, also angst, also jehan wasn't executed, basically no-one died, because the national guard realised he was the best person in all the world or something, but not really angst because i can't write angst, but that's bot important nO-ONE DIES IN THIS FIC, enjolras holds a place in louis napoleon's government, enjolras you little troll, except some people, he marks bastille day with mozart's coronation mass, moderate au in which the barricades succeeded, or ever, which he is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-06
Updated: 2013-05-06
Packaged: 2017-12-10 14:53:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/787293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BreathingSpace/pseuds/BreathingSpace
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everything more or less falls in to place after the barricades.</p>
<p>Except one thing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Homines Nobis

**Author's Note:**

  * For [phantomreviewer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/phantomreviewer/gifts).



> This is a birthday present for the dearest darling phantomreviewer, who wanted angsty h/c. I am so, so sorry about this fic, sweetheart, it is so much worse than you deserve <3 xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Everything had worked out since the barricades.

The aristocracy slipped silently, their dresses dulled, down side streets to make way for the heaving omnibuses cleaving through heaving crowds. The unaired streets stank of rotted cabbage and mutton fat, greasy sheets and damp featherbeds. The stench from the factory stacks covered this smell in caustic sulphur. The people, all rotted teeth and sour milk and tumourous disease, moved among it. The streets seethed. They were free.

Everything had worked out.

~

Enjolras stretched out, luxuriating in the morning sunlight. The other tenants hadn’t stirred yet, he loved to start the day with a dawn. This was his favourite time of day. It was full of promise, but not expectation. The sun was warm on his pillow. Grantaire would have ruffled his hair affectionately and said he was like a cat.

Oh.

~

Jehan and Courfeyrac had found graffiti on the walls during a wander down to see Marius and Cosette, happily installed in their father’s house, which said nothing but “REMOVE”. Once they had stopped laughing, they had removed. They lived down in the south, where, according to Jehan’s letters, the smell of summer was always heavy in the air. Jehan belonged with fresh air and strawberries, and Courfeyrac belonged with Jehan, so he supposed it had all worked out.

In the end, it had probably worked out.

For the best.

He saw them every year, at least. They came to the opera with him. His old friends.

The very very best.

~

“Enjy, these are quite some quarters you’re keeping yourself in”

Jehan swept in after him, a mess of scarves.

“Ignore him. Hello, sunflower.”

Enjolras lent down and accepted a kiss on the cheek from Jehan, and a sanctimonious raised eyebrow from Courf.

“What?!” he asked.

“ _Minister_ Enjolras. I expected you better put up. Actually, I did expect this. They offered you somewhere, didn’t they? And you refused on accounts of it being too grand?”

Enjolras coloured slightly.

“A man of government has to understand what he expects his people to live through. If we-”

Courfeyrac smiled the indulgent smile that he had missed. “I know, Enjolras. I haven’t forgotten. I haven’t forgotten anything.”

Enjolras froze, and then smiled again gently.

“No-one’s forgotten, Enjolras.”

“I know. I just- remember, sometimes.”

Jehan smiled sympathetically. “You’re not the only one.

Courf clapped him on the shoulder. “Are you going like that, or does a servant of the people not own a waistcoat?”

~

The servant of the people did own a waistcoat, but only one and it was so red it made Jehan want to cry. Courf just tied the least offensive cravat it allowed around Enjolras’s neck and led the two off.

Every year, on the fourteenth of July, the Odéon had hosted a performance of Mozart’s _Coronation Mass_. This was completely for irony’s sake. There was a strong rumour that it had only come about because of Enjolras’s position in government.

Enjolras wound never let anyone think that he was using his position for wrongdoing, so he never confirmed it.

But it was true.

In the interval between the warm up acts and the beginning of the Mass, Jehan leaned over to Courfeyrac and whispered, “Where’s Grantaire?”

Courfeyrac didn’t know.

~

“For a monarchist piece, it carries with it an enduring message for the common working man-”

“Enjolras-”

“I mean,” Enjolras’s voice got higher and higher, “the theme of death and redemption running through the libretto… maybe I should translate it into French, Latin is such a-”

“Enjolras.”

“It’s a relic of times which we as a people have worked to supersede!” Enjolras almost shouted. “It’s existence may or may not be a tribute to the enduring power of-”

“Enjolras,” said Jehan sweetly. “You are talking complete bollocks. Answer us. Where is he?”

“He’s fine!”

Jehan and Courfeyrac exchanged glances.

“With all due respect, Enjolras, that isn’t what either of us meant.”

Enjolras’s eyebrows shot up to a pitch that almost matched his voice. “He’s perfectly alright! Let’s go home! Let’s go back to where I live and have a glass of wi-ater. The water is so clean now, we’ve been working from the innovations of-”

“Enjolras.” Courfeyrac lay a comforting arm on his friend’s shoulder. Enjolras backed himself into a wall and looked beseechingly at Courf’s face. “You don’t have to lie to us. You don’t have to lie to _either_ of us. Enjolras, why would you think that?”

He caught Jehan’s eye.

“Okay, okay. No. Now isn’t the place for that conversation. We fought with you Enjolras, and we would have died for you. No-” He held up his hand. “No. Let me finish. I’m not using this against you. Enjolras…”

He moved his hand up to Enjolras’s forehead. He was tense. His muscles had all knotted themselves under his skin.

“Enjolras….”

“Enjy.” Jehan stepped in. “Enjy, you’re our friend. Rebellion be fucked, we love you. We’d have died for you anyway. All we want to know is-”

“Where is he? Where is he, Enjolras?”

Enjolras looked panickedly from one concerned, friendly, darling face to the next.

He had never hated love so much than in that moment.

He waited. He waited and waited, and he tried and tried, but all that came out was “… can we go home?”

Courf and Jehan exchanged glances _again_. He hated them. He hated them and he loved them and he wanted the world to burn with that feeling.

“I think we better….

“Courf, he could be in danger….

“No, listen. He might be single minded, but he isn’t cruel. He won’t have put him in….”

“I _know_ he won’t have put him in danger, but he might have got himself into it regardless. Hell, Courf, he _will_ have, you know who we’re…”

Courfeyrac stopped and looked and Enjolras straight in the face.

“I won’t ask you again.”

Enjolras, who’d been listening with wide ears to the whole charade, just looked at him. “I don’t know. I honestly don’t know.”

If Courf and Jehan looked at each other _one more time_ , then-

“Can he have gone to….?”

_“I don’t know,_ Jehan, I’m not a Grantaire whisperer. It’s worth a try, though….”

“Can you take care of-”

“I’ll look after Blondie, you search for Juliet.”

Blondie, hah. He’d heard that name a while ago.

“If he’s there, then…”

“If he’s there then we’ll know where to find him. Realistically, where else will he be? Enjolras, I swear when he get back to your crap flat, we are having _such_ a discussion…”

Enjolras leant against Courfeyrac’s hand. It was still resting on his forehead. It soothed him, somehow. Maybe it was the coolness. He’d had a orange during the interval. Maybe the coolness from that had permeated into the spit-thin covering of his hands. Maybe the cold was leaking out like blood or sweat or diamonds to his own skin

He remembered skin to skin

Skin to skin contact

The fluids that came through skin

Sticky and viscous and all, all his.

“Courf, keep a hold of him.”

“I am, I am. You go, Jehan. I’ll see him home.”

Jehan smiled wanly. “Put him straight to bed. He doesn’t look well.”

Enjolras stood on his own two feet and glared at Jehan defiantly.

“Don’t wiggle, Enjy.”

“If he’s not protesting to you calling him Enjy, he must be feeling rough. Come on, Blondie. Home we go.”

~

There’s a street in Paris which I hope you never visit. If you believe in Hell, it might take a similar shape. Not immediately, but soon. Once you understand enough to know what’s going on behind closed doors, you’ll know.

That’s why Jehan drew his coat slightly closer when he walked down it.

There was a light that never goes out at the end, once upon a time. If a candle wasn’t keeping it burning, then a man was. A man with a burning soul. A soul that kept him up at night from bleeding in to his deep tissue and scarring him so much that he could only breathe when he was in the company of what had made him burn.

Or some such.

Jehan made a mental note of that phrase to use, sometime.

He had hated this place. This place and all it stood for. Not just illness and depravity, the children he had wept for, but for that one, solitary person he knew. They had fought for the abased, but there was only one person who was truly abased that Jehan had ever met.

He’d never admit it. A revolutionary hero did not do things like that. But whenever, in the back room, in his apartments, at the _barricades_ , he had wondered what he was fighting for, it was a picture of Grantaire which had sprung to mind.

Not always. Sometimes, a woman with qualities like him. Alcohol dependant. A drunkard, a cynic. Useless. Repressed and oppressed and squeezed out of her skin. Sometimes a child, barefoot and crying for the mother that didn’t have the love in her heart to nurture her. He scolded himself, sometimes, for not being more useful to them. Yes, yes, the fucking revolution. This was France. If France had anything in abundance, it was revolutions. He had played a part, a minor part, the almost-martyr, but it had been the people who had saved him. And he could not save them. He could write them pretty poems. He could tell them pretty stories. But he could not heal them. He could not bind their wounds, staunch their bleeding, quench their hurt. He couldn’t carry their pain. He couldn’t. He wasn’t that clever.

But he could try.

He walked up, quietly, in case anyone was sleeping, to the familiar door. He knocked twice, and then again. They had used this, year ago. Grantaire’s door had swung open. “Little Prouv!” he had boomed. “Prouvie, welcome! Come to join the house of discontent?”

If Jehan was honest, he hadn’t really believed in God, ever. Just humanity. Humanity, and the goodness prevalent in it. The goodness which inspired charity and love and kinship and all the other things Grantaire had scoffed at. But he prayed to him now. Please, God. Let my poor, darling friend be here. I don’t know how to reach him otherwise. My poor, poor Grantaire. You can take me, you can take whatever you would like from me. Just please, please let him be here.

He waited.

There was a shuffling, then a crank. Then a crack at the doorframe and a “what?”

“Grantaire?” He whispered

“Who the hell are you and how the hell do you know my name?”

“It’s me.”

“Yeah, you’re going to have to elaborate on that. Who the fuck is ‘me’ when he’s at home?”

“Jehan. Me. Little Prouv.”

There was an incredulous silence.

“…Jehan?”

“It’s you, isn’t it, Grantaire?”

“No, no. Fuck, Jehan , you’re in Normandy-”

“Provence”

“Provence…. why the fuck are you here? Why the fuck are you outside my door, Jehan?”

“Grantaire…”

“No. No no no no no. You know whatever the fuck… you guys felt about the monarchy? Well, that is the extent to which I want you here. Please, Jehan. Oh fuck, I should never have said your name. Now you know it’s me, don’t you? Oh, of course you fucking know it’s me, you said my name. Jeus fuckwit Christ, I am such an idiot. Pretend I didn’t say your name. Oh please, just leave, Jehan. Please, just fucking go.”

“Grantaire….”

“Jehan, I’m warning you.”

“GRANTAIRE.”

Jehan froze, slightly astounded by his own aggression. From the sounds of it, Grantaire was too.

“…what?”

“If you don’t’ let me in right now, I swear to all that is holy I will break this door down and I will forcibly march you out here to face me.”

There was a silence.

“Technically, if you marched me out here, I’d already be-”

“GRANTAIRE.”

The  door opened a crack more.

“Jehan, what’s this about?”

“I really, really don’t think I have to explain that to you.”

“If this is about Enjolras, then I’d be perfectly happy is you fucked back off to the Dordogne or-”

“I LIVE IN FUCKING PROVENCE” shouted Jehan, before realising that that wasn’t the point of this argument. “Grantaire, please. Just let me in.”

Grantaire hesitated on the other side of the door.

“Grantaire….”

It was still still

“Grantaire.” Jehan started. It looked like this called for some fucking Prouvaire verbal warfare. “I don’t know what happened. I don’t know what he did to you. All I know is that you’re hurting. And I’m your friend. I want to help you, Grantaire. I want to do whatever it takes. You’re worth everything to me, to all of us. Especially him. Please. Just open your fucking door.”

The door opened.

“ _Thank_ you.”

“… it’s okay.”

Grantaire seemed to shrink away from him.

“Grantaire, I wasn’t actually going to break your door down.”

“I know.”

But he relaxed, all the same.

There was an awkward silence.

“I’ve just been with Enjy.”

“I know.”

“Oh.”

There was an awkward silence.

“…how?”

“It’s the fourteenth of July. He always goes to see the Coronation Mass on the fourteenth of July. And why would you be in town, if you live in…”

“Provence,” Jehan prompted.

“Provence.”

“Grantaire….” Jehan started, not knowing really what was happening. “You do know you can talk to me, right? I mean, I know I don’t’ to anything really outstanding but I hope I can at least help you, and…”

“Jehan,” began Grantaire, “with all due respect, can you please shut up?”

“… okay” said Jehan, meekly.

“Fucking thanks. You don’t need to know about me and Enjolras, okay? I mean, it was never going to work out. There’s me, all drink and death and ‘nothing’s worth it’, and there’s him. This shining beacon of righteousness. This… fuck. Jehan. you know what I mean. I mean, you’re a fucking poet, you have to. This is the kind of thing you make a fucking _living_ writing about. So what’s the posh word for someone who’s shit that’s in love with a… I don’t know. A fucking demigod. Jesus. No, wait. Not fuckign Jesus. I don’t like all that beardy shit. Some god that shines fucking light down on everyone and bathes mortals in the… I don’t know. Fucking orange juice of Heaven. You know I didn’t fucking go to Church. You were there when I fucking went off about it. ‘ _A man of some learning_ ’, Enjolras said it made me sound. A man of some fucking learning indeed.”

“Grantaire…”

“Just tell me fucking this, Jehan. Did he look fucking perfect? Okay, that’s a redundant question. I know he fucking did. All the stars hid their fucking eyes because of him.”

“Gran _taire_ ….”

“i want your sweet voice to thick my face until I choke to death on you/let me lick your skin/i love you so much”

 

“Taire, listen…”

 

“where your skin is thinnest./let me draw the fluid out of you/bathed you in honey soap before/stay with me”

 

“I swear to God Grantaire, if you keep reciting that shit ass poetry at me…”

 

“i want you inside me forever/your hard weight/would break my veins. /soaked in sleep and stupid from blood. /stay with me.”

 

“Oh, for fuck’s fucking sake.”

Jehan sat down heavily.

“Grantaire, I need to explain something to you. Oh, and if you open your mouth one more fucking time during the proceedings, I will genuinely eviscerate you. Do you understand?”

Grantaire, stunned, in the corner, nodded.

~

“Enjolras.”

“What?”

“The time has come to make me believe.”

Enjolras looked at him blankly.

“Okay, fuck. I can see subtlety isn’t going to work on you. Dammit, I should have fucking known that. He’d been subtle for _centuries_ , hadn’t he? It only took you an age and a half to catch on to what he was saying.”

Enjolras tossed his head from side to side and looked at him blankly.

“Okay, forget I said anything. Listen, you can do anything; go to sleep or…. whatever the fuck it is you do with your spare time, if you can answer me one question. One question, Enjolras.”

Enjolras looked up at him.

“He did something to you, didn’t he?”

Enjolras continued to look.

“… what was it, Enjolras?”

Enjolras broke his gaze.

Courfeyrac broke slightly and sat down beside him.

“I know, I know we’re not as close as we have been, not for a long while. It’s my fault, it’s my fault, Enjolras. I moved away. I did all of this. I’m the one responsible, not you. But here, please. Help me fix it. Tell me, Enjolras. Tell me what happened.”

Enjolras turned his fevered eyes on Courf.

“… please, Enjolras.”

Enjolras’s eyes had turned bluer than he remembered them.

“He left me, Courf.”

~

“He was too good for me, Jehan. He always was. Always will be. I mean, fucking Jesus. Look at him. Look at _me_. And that’s not even the beginning of it. Look what he’s done. His hair’s beginning to streak with grey now, but I don’t care. I don’t care because all I’ve wanted to do is grow old with him. Enjolras. My Enjolras.”

~

“He just turned around and finished it. Finished _it_. After all this time.”

~

“I mean, it wouldn’t have fucking started unless I thought we were going to die, would it? And that’s it, Jehan. That’s all it was. A dying wish. A dying wish that he fucking granted because he’s fucking Enjolras and there’s nothing he could be bad at if it came and hit him over the head screaming ‘ _be bad at me’_ …. Jehan, if I hadn’t done that, do you think he would still have-”

~

“Courf, if he hadn’t have grabbed my hand like that, made me feel… important like that. _Wanted_ like that then…. I don’t know. I don’t know what would have fucking happened. I’d have wasted my life away, fighting for something and never knowing what I was fighting for. He is _it_ , Courf. He’s everything I wanted and I… I didn’t even know it. Not up until the last moments. Not up until what should have been my fucking death, Courfeyrac…”

~

“He’d have carried on living the way he wanted. Spending his life fighting for something, and me never knowing what. He was _it_ , Jehan. He _was_ it. He was The One. And don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about because you’re a poet and you should know better than fucking all of us what I mean when I say ‘The One’.

“So you left him?”

“What could I _do,_ Jehan? What the hell could I fucking do?”

~

By this point in the evening, Grantaire had drunk so much (or the ‘so much’ that he had drunk was beginning to hit him, Jehan wasn’t sure what) that he was easily swayed that Jehan didn’t live in Normandy or the Dordogne or wherever the fuck Grantaire thought he lived. He lived in his little flat, down the Rue du Mont Saint Michel, as he had done all those years ago. That little flat decorated with pages he’d torn out of books, and letters that he’d got from his friends and wallpapered his roofbeams with. fresh flowers always on the windowsill. Little Prouv’s house.

“It’s not far, Grantaire. I’m not leaving you like this,”

“My _house_ , Jehan….”

“It’s alright, I locked it up. You’re alright, Grantaire. Just keep following me. You’re alright. Slip your arm around me, there you go. There you go. Isn’t that better? There we are. It’s alright.”

~

“He’s just so… I don’t even _know_ , Courfeyrac….”

“Enjy, I think you should….”

“I just… he… I thought I was _right_ for him, you know?”

“Enjy, shhhh. Shhh, shhh, shhh. It’s fine. It’s fine, you’re fine, you’re okay. He’ll have had a reason.”

Enjolras stuttered.

“Enjy. He’ll have had a reason and it will have been nothing like you think it will have been. Shhh, Enjy. It’s all okay.”

~

“I’m going to unlock my flat now, Grantaire. Are you alright? Do you think you can stand by yourself?”

“’M fine” came the muffled reply.

Jehan wasn’t convinced.

“Okay, ‘Taire. You just… stand there. You… yeah. Hold on. I’ll just get my key out.

Jehan made a huge pantomime out of bringing an imaginary key out of his pocket.

“Um, okay, ‘Taire. Now I’m going to unlock my door. I’m going to put my hand over the lock so, err, robbers can’t see which way to turn it.”

Jehan risked a panicked look at Grantaire, and seeing he was barely propping himself up against the wall, decided to be brave.

“Okay,” he said, imitating a lock noise. “Here we go. In we come. These are my rooms, do you remember my rooms, Grantaire? Here we are. One foot in front of the other now, there we are. Do you remember these?”

“Mngh.”

“Erm, okay. Yeah. I’ll just see if, erm. The person I share rent with is in.”

“’The person you share rent with?’” hissed Courf from the darkness, right in front of his face.

“Be quiet, Courf.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m not the one making poor ass excuses. Enjy’s sat on his seat feeling sorry for himself, get him over there.”

“I don’t even know if he knows how to walk, Courf.”

“Well, there’s only one way to find out, isn’t there?” And before Jehan could say another word, Courfeyrac called out; “Grantaire? It’s the…. person Jehan shares the rent with”. He glared at Jehan silently. “I was wondering…. where are you?”

There was a vague shuffle and a smack from somewhere nearby.

“Well.”

“Be quiet, Jehan, at least we know he’s in here.”

“Of course we know he’s in here, I bought him in here!”

“Grantaire?”

There was another shuffle and a vague moaning sound.

“Yeah, that’s it. I’m here. Where are you. Are you…. oh, hold on, I think I see you. Are you over by the…. aha.”

Courf’s hand closed over something.

“I think I’ve got him, Jehan.”

“Well, good. I’m not the one he needs to be talking to, am I? Get him ove-AHH! Get him over here. I just walked into a desk. Who needs more than one desk? Just… walk him through.”

Courf tried his best to do as he was told. Grantaire manoeuvred to the chaise longue in a surprisingly pliable way. He touched the space where he thought he’d left Enjolras.

“Enj?”

“Ngh?”

“Yeah, well. It’s time to wake up now.”

“’Sit morning?”

Jehan and Courf looked at each other. “Yes…” answered Courfeyrac, at about the same time that Jehan said “The sun has risen.”

Enjolras stirred weakly.

“Maybe we should light a candle.”

“Why?”

“To make him think it’s morning!”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“I’m not!”

“Let’s just… prop them together. There we are. Enjolras, wake up now. Enjolras, someone’s come to talk to you.”

Enjolras stirred.

“Enjolras, someone bought Bourbon biscuits into your household.”

Enjolras sat upright.

Courf grabbed Jehan’s wrist. “Come on.”

“We don’t know if he’s seen him yet…”

“They’re leaning on each other, that should be a fairly obvious indicator… come on, little Prouv. The hotel isn’t far away.”

~

Grantaire felt something whisper against his ear.

He twitched.

Something else twitched, a bit more dramatically than he did.

His eyes flew open.

“Oh.”

“ _Enjolras?”_

Enjolras blinked at him.

“You’re, er. Here.”

“Wait… what?”

“Hmm?” Enjolras blinked patiently at him.

“”Why the fuck are you in Jehan’s house?”

Enjolras blinked again. His eyelashes fluttered and Grantaire didn’t know whether he wanted to cry hotly or die.

“… this isn’t Jehan’s house, Grantaire.”

“I….”

Enjolras’s voice softened. “Do you not remember?”

Grantaire didn’t answer.

“Grantaire…”

“Enjolras, don’t, I-”

“You _left_ me!”

He tried to stop it. He really did. But seeing those eyes in that face surrounded by that soft hair on that soft skin broke all of his dams and made the hurt come flooding out like boiling water.

“You were _there_ one minute, and then you were gone. I gave _everything_ for you, Grantaire. I would have given my life for you and you just _left_ and-”

Grantaire stared down at his knees.

“You were everything to me. We could have been everything more. Why, Grantaire? Why? And why now? Why here? Why _are_ you here? This is my… this was _our_ … and- Grantaire, you’ve…”

“It’s the fourteenth of July.”

Enjolras looked at him. “Yes.”

“It’s Bastille Day.”

“And?”

“You always go and see Mozart’s _Coronation Mass_ on Bastille Day. It’s on at the Odéon. Some people said you didn’t have a sense of humour, but you do, I know you do. I-”

“Is that why you came?”

“What?”

“Is that why you came? Because it’s Bastille Day?”

“Enjolras, I-”

“You _left_ me, Grantaire! You left me alone. I tried to be everything to you, and you-”

Grantaire’s hand landed suddenly, hard, on his knee.

“Don’t say that.”

“Don’t say what?”

“Don’t say I left you.”

“Well, what am I _meant_ to say? You went for a merry little wander, and yo met someone that caught your eye, and you-”

“I would _never_ do that” he said fiercely. “How the fuck could you even think that.”

“Then _why_? _Why_ , Grantaire? After all we had, after all we did, you-”

Grantaire stopped him.

He physically stopped him. With his hands in his hair, Enjolras stopped speaking. Grantaire opened his mouth, but Enjolras said the words first.

“You just don’t _get_ it, do you?”

And then he kissed him.

~

Everything had worked out since the barricades.

The aristocracy slipped silently, their dresses dulled, down side streets to make way for the heaving omnibuses cleaving through heaving crowds. The streets stank of cabbage and mutton fat, carrots and turnips and haricot beans. Spices and ginger. The fresh linen that hung out the windows, lanolin soap and fresh hay. The people, well fed, smelling of home and gentle health moved among it. The streets bustled. They were free.

Everything had worked out.


End file.
